fltws said:

Wow, I remember that one.

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It had METERS...oooohhh!!!

sorry...couldn't resist; can't recall if switch was on the back or side

gearme said:

Phase Linear 400...fond memories! My first amp; hooked up to JBL - L100s...sucker could go loud!

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Mine's driving a set of JBL 4312's.  I reconed the woofers and rebuilt the crossovers.

gearme said:

It had METERS...oooohhh!!!

sorry...couldn't resist; can't recall if switch was on the back or side

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Those 2 hypnotic eyes beckoned and made me drool at the mouth, but I was still a staunch tube-o-phile at the time.
 
Plus, I was young and thin, just like my wallet at that time.

pandahead said:

I haven't flown since 1999.

Due to elder care I have not left home for more than an afternoon in 5 years.

Now that two of the three parents we were simultaneously caring for have passed on my wife and I can take turns traveling.

I have never been to a Hi-Fi trade show.

Wanted to meet Jason and the Schiit team so nervously booked a flight and registered for all three days.

Day one, Friday, the first thing I see is a fire extinguisher sitting next to Vidar. Priceless! I take a picture.

Could not figure how to get the photo posted from my phone, and it wouldn't let me even upload to my head-fi photo album.

If you have read to this point, here's the punch line: Saturday I discovered I was scooped here by a link to STEREOPHILE that had the same photo!!

I will post it tonight when I get home anyway! (the aforementioned won't get more clicks) It was a pleasure meeting Jason and crew.

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Look forward to your photos.

I have to be honest, I am thick. Someone please explain to me the fire extinguisher joke. I don't get it.

koshnaranek said:

Look forward to your photos.

I have to be honest, I am thick. Someone please explain to me the fire extinguisher joke. I don't get it.

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The heat sink / circuitry issues Jason had during development. I think one of the prototypes may have launched at one of the shows, not sure on that however.

Since it's still a prototype in case it went up in flames Jason wanted to be ready It was only there on Friday.

pandahead said:

Since it's still a prototype in case it went up in flames Jason wanted to be ready It was only there on Friday.

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Well, you have to understand that my first car had a fire extinguisher screwed to the driver side door. People thought it was a joke, but I had the opportunity to use it twice. It was just prudence to have it.

fltws said:

   
The heat sink / circuitry issues Jason had during development. I think one of the prototypes may have launched at one of the shows, not sure on that however.

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We never actually lost a Vidar at any show, but we did have one turn off via the thermal shutoff at RMAF. That was the earlier heatsink design that was inadequate for the FTC preconditioning test.
 
However, we DID lose the Vidar that was at Axpona, two days before the show. I had assembled the production board and got it working, dropped it in the chassis and bolted it down to the heatsinks using our fancy thermal clips that we decided to make after finding out that assembly of the Vidar prototype was almost impossible. Everything fit great, everything worked great, the firmware ran fine, and all was good...until we gave it to Bill to run it on speakers.
 
Shortly after cranking it up, the Vidar went into protection mode. When Bill called me down, I found that three output resistor arrays had fried and three outputs had expired. Further investigation showed that they had melted, as if they hadn't been held down to the heatsink well enough by the clips. A bit more investigation showed that the clips didn't put enough pressure on the outputs, since they were designed for a standard TO247 package (0.2" thick) and the Toshiba outputs were actually 0.177" thick. So, boom. 
 
The really good news? Vidar is easy to service. In 15 minutes, we were back up and running with meaningfully modified thermal clips (modified with a hammer, ha). We watched it on the FLIR for a while, then gave it back to Bill. All was well.
 
Our crew at Axpona knew about the story, and thought it would be funny to put a fire extinguisher by the Vidar. I agreed. After cranking it the first day, though, I decided all was well.
 
When Vidar gets back to us today, it goes in for more torture-testing. This time with data logging. And the clips are already out being re-profiled. So, just a minor bump in the road.

Jason. Been rereading 'Schiit Happened' and I have gotten to the chapter'When To Say "When"' In one of the sections titled 'Lessons From Other Hobbies' you mention you got big into cars. If you don't mind me asking, what have been some of the cars you have owned, and which have been your favourites.

OK here we go, I think the site might work. So here's the pics from Friday at AXPONA. The first thing I saw was the fire extinguisher. I did laugh out loud. Nice Schiit touch and humor....I felt safe!

So here's the Salk Song 3. If you live near the Schiitr and you're looking to build a two channel system or looking for new speakers and Vidar(s) it's worth a trip. These had the ultra hand rubbed deep gloss finish which adds a lot of $$$ over the standard finish which is already impeccable.

And here's the big brother Song 3 Encore on the right from the Salk room. It has the standard finish.

Well I guess it didn't work. Here's the first pic that disappeared...

Saga and Bimby -> Amazing performance per $

Hope you all find your way back here through the abysmal failure of the new website format. Take something that just works and make it a million times harder to use just for the sake of change (and more money- the real reason we all know).

Signed: The Stubborn Engineer

Hey Jason and Mike,

Can you bring some really heavy Mjolnir down on the idiots who COMPLETELY screwed the pooch on this new website design? It's gonna mess with your connection to us faithful who have otherwise useless lives without being able to get a Schiit fix multiple times daily!!!!!

Day 3 with my new black Bimbo, uh Bimby, Bambi, Barbie, whatever. I'm digging it. Very happy I made the switch from my previous DAC, which was a pretty nice DAC in it's own right. Chinese, 1704 chips.